Death had come to claim our father and there was nothing we could do to stop it. In truth, it would be a release from the misery that our father had been going through for the past six months. Dad was dying of lung cancer and the pain and fear he was experiencing cut just as deeply as the separation I would later experience.

Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes that there is a season to everything. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. Feeling a sense of loss and sorrow after the death of a loved one is not being weak in the faith. For, even though we who know the truth of the resurrection don't sorrow as others do, it is appropriate, even beneficial to our health, to let ourselves feel the emotions that come with the pain that separation from a loved one brings. Jesus Christ was described as a man of sorrows and we are told that He was acquainted with grief. Jesus Christ experienced human emotions. He wept openly before others when Lazarus died. He knew that death was an enemy that caused sorrow and He wasn't afraid to let His emotions show. God the Father, a God of love and compassion, must have experienced great sorrow and grief as He watched His Son go through intense suffering before dying. And could God not have felt the frustration and loneliness that death brings as He waited the three days and three nights for His firstborn Son to be resurrected? When we go to the God Family in prayer we can be sure that the Father and Son understand our sorrow and will grant us the peace of mind we need to go on with our lives.

One well meaning individual told me that it was all a matter of how a person looks at things. His reasoning was that we didn't have to have emotional downs if we continually think positive. There is an element of truth in what he said. To allow oneself to sink into a state of depression is self destructive and doesn't do the mourner, or the person who is gone, a service. Self control is important and excessive weeping and sorrow can hurt rather than heal. But to deny that one has experienced a loss and ignore legitimate feelings is also self destructive and ignores the scriptural instruction that there is a time to weep and sorrow.

We know that God desires all to be saved. And that ALL mankind will live again and have their chance at salvation. We take great comfort in that wonderful truth. But God, a God of emotions, who also experienced grief and sorrow, knows that it is a part of the healing process that we do the same. Then, after we have sorrowed, we will experience healing. We will remember our lost loved one with fondness and a continued sense of loss, but we will be able to live with the comfort that we will see them again at the time of their resurrection.

So let us grieve. Not as the world, who has no understanding of God's great plan of salvation. But let us grieve with the hope of the resurrection giving us comfort. Let us acknowledge our loss and allow ourselves to go through the grief and sorrow that the death of a loved one brings. Only then can we experience true healing and move on to a time of song and dance.